07/29/2008
Released: 7/29/2008
A SUNY Cortland associate professor of psychology is making house calls to help parents and scientists better understand babies.
Kimberly Kraebel is half way through a two-year infant learning and memory project to comprehend how infants process sensory information during learning.
The study is funded by a $156,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and seeks infant participants ages 3 and 5 months old. Kraebel is only the second faculty member from SUNY Cortland whose research has been funded by NIH.
“I’ve always been interested in the underlying processes of learning,” said Kraebel, who has more than nine years of experience working with infants in a research setting. “This project is about understanding the basic learning processes in infants and how those processes might differ from the way older children and adults take in new information. Specifically, I am trying to determine what factors might facilitate or inhibit these procedures in infants.”
The heart of the research is finding out if babies would show facilitated learning in the presence of amodal cues, meaning cues that can be processed by more than one of the senses, Kraebel explained.
“Research has shown that infants are very good at detecting amodal cues such as shape, intensity and affect,” Kraebel said. “I want to determine if there is a functional significance to this detection for learning operations. The long-term goal of the research is not only to understand babies better and how they learn, but also to eventually help babies at risk for developmental and learning disabilities by providing them with experiences that will enhance understanding.”
The tools she uses to measure how the babies learn are all handmade and one-of-a-kind. They include a kick-detecting device, a mobile made up of cylindrical shapes and a small motor that makes the mobile move.
Kraebel, often accompanied by one of her senior students, visits the homes of the babies whose parents have elected to participate in the study. A ribbon connected to the mobile is looped around the baby’s foot. When the baby kicks, the mobile moves and “Sesame Street” music is played for reinforcement.
Kraebel is studying three different groups of babies. While learning to make the mobile move, one group holds a wooden cylinder, which matches exactly in shape of those on the mobile. The second group of infants holds nothing and the third holds a brick-shaped object.
The number of kicks that make the mobile move is recorded on a computer, Kraebel explained. The baseline kicking is measured and the baby is given a chance to learn that kicking makes the mobile move. The infants are then given a mini-test to see if they learned that they are the ones controlling the mobile. The more a baby kicks during the mini-test, the more it indicates that they understand that their kick caused the mobile to move.
“The early results of the research suggest that the presence of matching amodal cues does facilitate learning, explained Kraebel. “Those babies that hold the cylindrical object while learning to make a mobile of cylinders move kick more than those who did not hold an object and those who hold the brick shape. I have found that holding the brick actually inhibited learning.
“The group of infants holding the brick is important because it shows that the facilitated learning was not due to sensory arousal from simply holding an object. The amodal cue of shape must match across the senses of sight and touch. Only when the held object matched the shape of the mobile’s objects did the infants show facilitated learning.”
Kraebel presented the early discoveries of her research at a conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in March 2008 with students who also produced research findings.
Two of those students, Kelly Armstrong ’08 and Nicole Granger, a junior psychology major from Marietta, N.Y., studied 3- and 5-month-old infants in a habituation study last year that supported Kraebel’s infant learning study. In contrast to the mobile procedure, which uses a complex form of learning called operant learning, habituation represents a very simple form of taking in new information.
“Our research also explored how infants learned, but at a more simple level,” said Armstrong of Garrattsville, N.Y., who will begin attending the College of St. Rose in August to obtain a master’s degree in school psychology. “We first made sure the infants treated the cylindrical and square objects the same. We then showed that infants would habituate faster to the shape of the objects in the presence of matching amodal cues. Overall, the early results of Professor Kraebel’s studies suggest that the presence of matching amodal cues facilitate both simple and complex forms of learning in infants.”
The studies only use babies at 3 and 5 months old because younger children are more sensitive to amodal cues, which makes it more likely for observers to see that sensitivity, Kraebel explained. Also, the older the infant gets, the more mobile they become, making it more difficult to conduct the procedures.
Rebecca Tice of Cortland, N.Y., a Spanish teacher in the Dryden Central School District, received a letter in the mail asking for her to enroll her now 6-month-old daughter, Emily, in the study.
“I think it’s important,” said Tice, whose daughter participated in the study twice at 3 months old and once at 5 months old. If we’re ever going to learn anything about infants and how they learn, we have to be willing to take part in studies like this one. The experience was very positive for Emily and myself. Kim was wonderful to work and talk with.”
“This study will hopefully make important contributions to the area of developmental psychology,” Kraebel said. “It represents a really unique opportunity for parents and infants in Cortland and the surrounding areas to participate in NIH-funded research.”
Kraebel, who joined SUNY Cortland in 2003, received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. She earned a master’s and doctoral degree in experimental psychology from Binghamton University.
For more information about the Infant Learning and Memory Project, visit Kraebel’s Web site at web.cortland.edu/kraebelk or contact Kraebel at (607) 753-2045.